New Books In Dance

Drawing the Surface of Dance: A Biography in Charts (Wesleyan UP, 2019) collects thirty years of “charts” by renowned choreographer and co-founder of Big Dance Theater Annie-B Parson. These charts serve as an archive of the ephemeral work of choreography. They include charts of favorite verbs, charts of props, a “chart of things rectangular, ” and a recreation of deck of cards for composition modeled after Mexican lottery cards. The drawings included in this book are like Parson’s dances themselves: idiosyncratic, funny, loving, vibrant, and detailed. They manifest what Parson calls her “magpie” approach to composition, drawing from paintings, films, gravestones, and classical ballet to create an aesthetic all her own. This is a book that will be of interest to students and practitioners of theatre and dance, but also to people who like beautiful drawings of strange things. Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA program at Columbia University, Harvard Un